In recent years, by controlling appliances in a home to operate in linkage with each other, systems for providing various services have been proposed. These systems are realized by executing an application program (hereinafter referred to simply as “application”) for controlling a plurality of devices to operate in linkage with each other.
In general, information which specifically identifies the home appliances to be controlled to operate in linkage with each other is described in the application. However, normally, the combination of home appliances owned by a user of the application is different for each user, and it is costly to create individual applications to conform to each user. Therefore, there is a method which expands the versatility of the application by describing, in the application, an abstract device name instead of a specific device name (for example, see Patent Document 1).
This method distinguishes the device based on whether or not it is equipped with the function required. In other words, information that represents an abstract device, such as “output video to a device equipped with a video display function” and “input sound from a device equipped with a sound microphone function”, is described in the application. In this manner, there is no need to specifically identify the devices that are controlled to operate in linkage with each other; therefore, the application can be made more versatile.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2003-153348 Publication